This is very true of so many areas on the internet. It’s amazing to think that an idea like the internet (a tool designed to give people the “freedom” to view﻿ content from anywhere in the world, and take away even the slightest power from those who may oppress) has been warped and distorted into a breeding ground for theft and piracy in the name of it being “free”.

So many complain and cry out against greed offline… then equally rejoice in free greed online.

Simon is clearly a bright man, but it’s going to take﻿ a LOT for the public to accept a paywall-only structure for online journalism. That probably says more about us as a public than the technology itself. But there will be great resistance to this type of model. People don’t want to pay for what they’ve been getting for free.

ALSO: It’s a long﻿ shot that David Simon actually reads this, but I’d love to get in touch with him. Perhaps the people intelligent enough to watch this might be fans/friends that are in contact with him?

Every american needs to hear this immediately while we still have a chance at saving our democracy.

WE NEED A NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION LED BY DAVID SIMON TO PUSH FOR THIS NEW, LOCALIZED, NON-PROFIT NEWSPAPER STRUCTURE WHERE JOURNALISTS ARE TRAINED AND MOTIVATED TO UNCOVER THE TRUTH AND ASK THE QUESTIONS THAT NEED TO BE ASKED.

Without reporters like D.﻿ Simon and other smalltown papers, we will have scandal after scandal. The end result = Don’t trust anyone anymore. Who will stop the Gov. Rowlands and Gov. Palin’s from building their own houses with public money? No one.

The point, orangefield21, is newspapers are going to go bankrupt ANYWAY if they don’t charge for viewing their content. How do you expect to pay a reporter to cover a﻿ story for a company that doesn’t charge its subscribers online? No wonder it seems to me American critical thinkers are fewer and farther between.

…and nobody could save the 8-track tape or the 5﻿ ¼ floppy disk and 3 ½ floppy disk, there is more pressing issues, such as dismantling and reorganzing the federal reserve and the I.R.S. both are obsolete and will kill our economy (or already have).

Excellent points made about an industry that will go the way of the buggy-whip if it does not find a new avenue for revenue.
Personally, i think that for every $ that goes to bail out a bank 1$ should go into a national newspaper Trust. It is more important to learn about the banks in the business pages than to fund their over-paid executive staffs.
Since the 2nd – for each $ spent on ammo or armaments another﻿ $ goes to the same Trust.
Then reporters draw from the Trust.
News w/o ads – Yeah!!!